


Hellfire Excesses

by vsishiikawa



Series: Hellfire Excesses Literary Universe [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: 1950s, Absurd, Adventure, Author is not a native English speaker, Bad Jokes, Bullshit Science, Cringe, Dark Comedy, F/M, Friendship, Human Experimentation, I Wrote This In School, Incompetence, Over the Top, Parody, Post-WW2, Probably offensive, Satire, Weirdness, exaggerated fiction, unusual problems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:28:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28381719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vsishiikawa/pseuds/vsishiikawa
Summary: It is some time after World War Two. Arthur Blackenship works for the government, in a top-secret research facility. Everything seems fine until he gets two new co-workers: Abayashi Fuki and Hans Kerrenheim, who were brought into the US via Operation Paperclip. They have one job: Perform experiments that could help the country. But sadly, they aren't really the smartest people under the sun. And so, three forces of incompetence are united and nothing goes as it should.Edit: removed "The Great Expansion" from the title to avoid misunderstandings.TEMPORARILY ON HOLD---Okay, so please read the tags. Also, if you are easily offended, please don't read this.Rated M for weird jokes and overall questionable stuff.
Series: Hellfire Excesses Literary Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2078712





	1. Chapter 1

Arthur didn't like Christmas. He hated especially this false morality the people seemed to radiate. They felt good because they donated three and a half dollars to the church. But in reality, most of the time he and his colleagues weren't exactly the most honorable people.

Also, he always felt sad about the trees, as they were cut, sold and pressed into a tiny stand, before the kids hanged tons of heavy decorations on them.

But what was worse than an evening full of sad trees and angry kids desperately screaming for presents?

An evening spent with reviewing pointless scientific protocols. Most of the papers his bosses had sent him were so full of shit, that Arthur was close to just throwing them into a trashcan. There was a bigger chance of a child finding the cure for cancer, than someone finding just a tiny bit of useful knowledge in thousands of those protocols.

He didn't become a scientist to confirm that a man died if one killed him. No, he studied hard so he could give his country a better future, not to evaluate the work of men, who probably never grew out of their setting-ants-on-fire-with-a-magnifying-glass-phase.

And the worst thing was yet to come. In the new year, Arthur would have to work together with exactly those men. This... this Hans Kerrenheim and this Fuki Abayashi. He didn't look forward to it.

Arthur pulled out his "Life advice journal". It was basically a little black notebook, where he wrote down random thoughts, to-do-lists but mostly tips on how to make it safe through life. While to every normal person, those tips would seem weird, but to Arthur, they made sense.

 _"If there is a war and you get captured by the enemy but get good food and vitamins, consider suicide"_ was a good tip for life, right? At least, Arthur believed that.

Someone knocked at the door to his office. "Yes!" Arthur shouted. Miss Evans, his secretary entered the room. "Excuse me, Mister Blackenship, I have new documents for you," she announced. Arthur felt frustration, as he looked at the thick pile of new material. It would take ages to read through that. "Thanks, Miss Evans." The secretary quickly left the room. Probably she would go home to her family, in order to celebrate Christmas.

But Arthur wouldn't leave the office until all the work was done.  
But it could be worse. He really preferred the theoretical work over the practical one. The practical work was so ... messy and stressful. No, Arthur liked to sort papers, write protocols and check concepts for mistakes. That was, what he wanted to do. But those idiots wouldn't let him. Instead, he was forced to read the insane ramblings of Nazis, who likely had drunk one glass of strong German beer too many. There were about three persons, who gathered useful data. The other ones just played around with unusual ways to kill people. In other words, Arthur liked papers, but not _those_ papers.

Sometimes he thought about changing his job. He thought about handing his resignation in and moving to the small village where his parents lived. Maybe he would be able to leave everything behind. No more shitty papers, no more stressful work, no new "coworkers". But Arthur realized, it wasn't that simple. A resignation could mean the end of his life. He knew too much about those things, that happened in this country. Those things of which the public had no knowledge of. Maybe his superiors would throw him out of a window or shit like that.

He looked at the next paper and sighed. It was about this one guy again. The one Miss Evens always talked about. Arthur couldn't understand his secretary's fascination with this man. There was definitely nothing hot about someone, who's face looked like it was melting. He cringed every time when Miss Evans started to talk about how cute he was. In his opinion this guy was a total loser. From what he had read, his "scientific" work was on the level of a little kid that just had successfully managed to press a square shaped piece of wood into a round hole.

The longer he stared at the pile of papers, the angrier he got. He wanted to be home, with his wife and kids. That was all, he could think about. Maybe he should just do what he wanted to do. Was it that hard to do the remaining work after Christmas? But he was sure, after Christmas the pile of papers would be twice as high as now.

Suddenly, Arthur had an idea. Quickly he took his briefcase, opened it and started to shove the protocols inside. He could work at home! Probably, when his family was asleep, he would get up and get this crap done. He could do it. He was sure about that.

**~ * ~**

It was 21:32 pm, when the Chevrolet Deluxe rolled into the garage. It was a beautiful, expensive car. He could only afford it because his boss had promoted him. He couldn't express how grateful he was for that.

Arthur was late. Hopefully his family was still awake. He ran to the front door as fast as he could. As he stood in the hallway, he smiled. The lights in the living room were still burning. "Mary?" He opened the door. His family was sitting on the couch, looking at the glowing Christmas tree.

"Arthur, you're finally here!"

"Yeah, I had much to do at the office." His family still thought he was working for a big company, that had something to do with money. "You work too much, honey," Mary said. "I know. But the money has to come form somewhere."

"Daddy, Daddy! I want to play the Cello!" Martin, his ten year old son shouted and pointed at the instrument, that was leaned against a wall. "You can play the Cello at any time," Arthur said. "Yay! Yay!" Martin grabbed the instrument. He slid the bow back and forth on the strings. It was a horrible noise, that even thousands of dying cats couldn't compete with.

But somehow, Arthur remembered his first encounter with his new colleagues, as he was thinking about dead cats.

**~ * ~**

_Kerrenheim was a small fat German. Arthur watched him devour a chocolate bar. The thing was gone in seconds. The man was so fat, that one wrong move could send the buttons of his uniform flying across the room._

_Fuki was the exact opposite of Kerrenheim. He was very skinny and didn't really look healthy._

_"Do you want some?" The German asked his friend, as he offered him a chocolate bar. Fuki declined politely. "No, thanks. I prefer warm tea."_

_Arthur was nervous. He was sitting at a table with two class-A war criminals._

_"I'd like to have one of your chocolate bars," he said. Kerrenheim stared at him but gave him the tasty food._

_"Do you know why you are here?" The American asked. "Of course," Fuki answered, "we have to help you with our humble research." Arthur nodded. "That's right. My boss instructed me to supervise your work. You know, have an eye on you so you don't try something stupid. The United States of America had mercy on you. But keep in mind, that they can take your privileges away at any time. So, if do anything to harm our country, you will have to live with the consequences. Do you understand that?" "Yes," the two men answered simultaneously. "Alright. Then I will show you around now."_

**~ * ~**

"Daddy, what's this?" Robert, Arthurs younger son, asked, holding a paper in his hands. It was one of the protocols Arthur was reviewing. "Bring that back to where you found it!" The father shouted. "But, Daddy, can't you explain to me what a 'Versuchsperson' is?" Robert looked at him with pure curiosity in his eyes. "It's... it's a name. For... a pet we have at work. A little dog, a poodle. He sometimes behaves like a person and that's why we call him that," Arthur said. He didn't like to lie to his family on a daily basis but he also couldn't tell them the truth. The fear of his superiors was just too strong.

"But, if the dog behaves like a person, why didn't you just call him 'Person' instead of ' _Versuchs_ person'?" Arthur didn't know what to say so he told his son the first shitty thought, that came into his mind. "Versuch is a German word. It means 'righteous'. ***** You know, the dog never lies, he's a righteous dog. Do you understand?" Robert started at the floor. "Yes. I do. But why a German word?" Arthur sighed. "One of my coworkers is German," he explained, "he came up with that name." Now satisfied with his fathers answers, Robert ran out of the room to bring the paper back to Arthur's desk.

The father sighed. It was never easy to lie to his family. They would ask "Hey, how was work today? Something interesting?" and he would answer with "Everything is fine. We had the usual stuff, like insurances and bank accounts." It hurt every single time. But he also couldn't talk about the darkest secrets of the government. He knew the consequences all too well. Last year, there was an incident one of his coworkers told his wife about the appalling nature of his work. Officially, he got fired. Unofficially, he was leading a miserable existence as a test subject somewhere in the 25th basement of the building Arthur worked in. He didn't bother to visit him. Hell, he didn't even know if that guy was still alive. And even if he was, Arthur couldn't do anything about the situation.

  


*** "Versuch" definitely doesn't mean "righteous", but "Experiment" or "Attempt", depending on the context.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so this is the first chapter of this story yay. If you have found any grammatical mistake or a spelling error, I'm very sorry. English is my 3rd language, and I will never be as good as a native speaker :(  
> But I can try at least :)  
> Also, don't worry about the length of this chapter, they will get longer in the future. 
> 
> An interesting thing is also, how I got the idea for this story. I was reading books about human experimentation in WW2 and sometimes, the stuff seemed so bizarre, I didn't know how someone could come up with that. And so, I decided to make a parody of the insanity, that was so rampant in the middle of the 20th century. I hope you like it. 
> 
> Have a nice day :D
> 
> \- V. S. Ishiikawa


	2. Chapter 2

It was the first day of work after Christmas. Arthur was standing in front of the big gate, that kept undesirable visitors away. He was standing in front of his workplace, the "Hex-Complex". _Hex_ was used as the abbreviation for _human experimentation_ here.

"Good Morning, Mister Blackenship," the officer in the guardhouse said. "Yeah, you too." Arthur stared at the building. In the 19th Century it had been a hospital. Now, it had strayed far away from its original purpose. One could say it was hell, someone else would say, that a hell was needed in order for heaven to exist. Arthur wasn't sad about the nature of his work. No, he felt good, because he could do something important. He could give his country something back. That was all he thought about, when he worked.

The first thing he saw, as he walked into the lobby was the giant picture, that hung at the wall behind the reception. It showed a disgusting burnt leg. Arthur didn't know, whose idea it was to put it there. It seemed in poor taste. He figured, that whoever it was, they probably were drunk when they made this decision. Or crazy. Or both.

It wasn't even the only picture that looked somewhat off. There were others as well. For example this big yellow shiny poster, that decorated the wall that everyone looked at, when they entered the building. Everyone except Arthur. He couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand it to look at the naked - possibly dead - man, that was lying on a table and the smiling face of the scientist standing behind him. This evil grin made Arthur nervous. It seemed as if the man wanted to break out of the poster, rip his soul out and drag it into the deepest pits of hell.

There was also a speech bubble. It read "Today is a good day for human experimentation!". With a damn exclamation mark at the end. Yes, the cartoony scientist was screaming at Arthur ordering him to experiment on people. While smiling.

But again, it wasn't the only disturbing poster in the lobby. There were even more, including an artichoke saying "It's for the country, it's for the greater good" and a grinning paperclip reminding all German employees to "Danke den USA, jeden Tag.", which translated to "Thank the USA, every day". There was also a poster with Japanese text but Arthur couldn't read that. He thought, that it would be something similar to what the paperclip said. His workplace was surprisingly international.

To get to his office, Arthur needed to pass through what the employees called the "Mouse House". It was the part of the building, where the people used for experimentation were living. He hated it to go through this one corridor. But he had to. A long time ago, some idiot decided to give Arthur the cheapest, dirtiest office they could find in the entire complex.

The man walked slowly. Thousands of hands shot through the tiny gaps between the bars, that were holding the people in their cells. Every single one of these hands wanted to grab Arthur and strangle him. It was a colorful chaos. Some of the hands were white, others were black and one even had an interesting pattern of purple and yellow. He tried to walk in the middle of the hallway, so the hands couldn't reach him. After what seemed like hours, he made it to his office door. It was white, but a dirty white, more like a very bright grey. There were scratches all over the surface and the paint was missing at some places, revealing a wood-like structure. Arthur pulled out his keys and unlocked the door. He was happy every time he entered his office, because it meant that he had made it through the corridor safely. It had been used as a laboratory at some point, a fact that explained the big brown spots on the yellow carpet, but Arthur loved it nonetheless. If one could ignore the noises, which the test subjects made constantly, it was a relatively okay place to work. There was a good view of the city from the window.

He sat behind his desk and stared at his typewriter. It was a cheap, broken typewriter, that would always print the "h" wrong. Well, Arthur wasn't exactly a top job employee. Most of the time he would do the stuff the others didn't have time for.

There was a piece of paper on his desk. A handwritten note that read "Look at the Menstruation Protocols ASAP. Palmerson wants to win the golden uterus this year." The note was signed by Dr Molly. He groaned annoyed. It wasn't like Arthur hated Dr Molly. There was just something off about this man but he couldn't point out exactly, what it was. His best guess was that it had to do with Molly's behavior towards the people he experimented on. He sometimes did things that were best described as unscientific plingplang.

Molly was the assistant of Dr Palmerson, a young, aspiring gynecologist. He wanted to win the golden uterus, an organization-intern prize for the best research project in gynecology. He wanted that prize for years but never won it. Mainly because Dr Molly was too damn incompetent and would always mess up the results.

Arthur sighed and opened one of the four drawer of his desk. He flipped through the many folders, that were in there, until he found what he needed. A flat, yellow folder partially smeared with a red, sticky substance. Dr Palmersons research papers were in there. And of course, Dr Mollys too. 

Arthur opened the folder and looked at its contents.

_Test subject: Menstrual cycle is normal, consistency of blood is clumpy and smeary  
Test subject was given four cl of Vodka.  
After 12 hours: The blood feels more squishy now._

He closed the folder rapidly.

This was exactly, what Arthur meant by Molly messing with the results. That man just didn't know how to write a proper protocol, he didn't know the appropriate words and he generally didn't know shit about how to conduct an experiment.

 _Squishy_. Arthur couldn't even figure out, what was meant by that. He decided to ask Molly about that later, but it was obvious that Dr Palmerson would never win his stupid prize, as long as this Molly was his assistant.

He wanted to continue with his work, just as he heard a knock on the door. "Yes!" he shouted. A very disappointed Kerrenheim came in. "Oh, it's you. Is there a problem?" Arthur asked. The German looked at his feet. "Well, yes. There is a problem," he answered. The American raised an eyebrow. "And what is the problem?"

"It's our test subject."

"Yeah, what's with your test subject?"

"Well, it's... gone." Kerrenheim looked deeply embarrassed.

Arthur tried to remain calm. "What do you mean by 'gone'?"

"It ran away."

He slammed his hand onto his desk. "Then look for it! It's not my problem if you're too dumb to conduct a simple experiment!" He shouted. If the boss would find out about this...

"Well, we know, where he is. But we need your help," the German explained.

**~ * ~**

"I'm not doing this," he said. "But you have to," Fuki countered. "Why don't you do it?" Arthur asked back. "I'm afraid of spiders. And there are spiders in there." The American was visibly confused. "Wait. You want to tell me, that you cut open people alive with no remorse, but you can't handle a little spider?" "Yes, Sir," Fuki answered. Arthur sighed. "What about you, Kerrenheim?" He asked. The man stared at him with big eyes, just like a child that found out that Santa didn't exist. "Do you want the ceiling to collapse?" Arthur looked at the Germans massive body. "You have a point there," he said and grabbed the lighter Fuki was holding out to him. "Fine, I'm doing it."

And so, he crawled into the tiny air vent. Unfortunately, the test subject had gone here to hide from the incompetent researchers. Of all possible places, it just had to choose the bloody air vent. And now, Arthur was crawling around in the darkness, armed with only a lighter. "Hey, where are you?" He shouted into the vent. "As if I'm going to tell you that!" A voice answered. It came from the left. "Please, come out. We can talk about everything."

"Are you kidding me? You just want to drag me back into your laboratory to push this horrible plutonium rod further down my butthole! And then just stand there and observe!" "Ahem." Arthur didn't know what to say. He didn't expect THAT as an answer. "Hmm. Did they really do that? I mean, did they do something else to you?" Arthur had developed a strategy. He asked questions and crawled in the direction from which an answer came from. Slowly, but steadily, he got nearer to the test subject, as he heard the answers louder and more clearly.

"Yes. They wanted to stick some shit into my...my _thing_... too. That's when I ran away."

Arthur felt nauseous. He didn't know that THIS was, what his colleagues were doing. What was the science of sticking something into...? He just couldn't understand it. But this mess reminded him of what one of his superiors once said. It was a conversation about space.

**~ * ~**

_"Mr Blackenship, with all the scientific progress we are making right now, do you think humans will ever be able to walk on the sun?"  
Arthur looked at him suspiciously. "What?" He asked. The other man smiled. "Of course not in summer, I thought about winter, when the sun is colder," he explained. "Ahem. I don't think so, Mr Lawrence." "Why?" "Because the sun is always hot. Even in winter." "But how can the sun be still hot, when it's snowing? Wouldn't the snow melt then?" Arthur sighed. "I don't have a clue. Go ask a Physicist," he said, not willing to continue this talk. _

**~ * ~**

This was the endless stupidity he had to deal with all the time. Sometimes it seemed to him as if he was surrounded by idiots, who couldn't get a single thing right. First Mr Lawrence with "when the sun is colder", then Molly with his pointless Menstruation-Alcohol research and now Fuki and Kerrenheim letting their test subject escape. It was a stupid world filled with stupid people.

Arthur was so busy with his thoughts, that he barley noticed that he had ran into something. It was warm and also kind of wet. It was a naked person. "Hey, Mister! Are you okay?" He asked. The naked man didn't answer. "Hey. Please. Is everything alright?" Still no response. With a difficult move Arthur reached for the mans arm to feel for the pulse. There was none.

"Shit."


	3. Chapter 3

They were quiet, as the man pried open the coffin with a crowbar. “Hey, can you help with that? It’s heavy,” Kerrenheim said and pointed at the massive wooden cover of the coffin. Arthur helped to carry it across the room. “Puh,” Fuki said, as he looked at the dead old woman lying peacefully in her box. “We can get him in now,” the Japanese announced. He watched his colleagues, as they carefully carried the naked man to the coffin. “Now?” Arthur asked. “Now,” Fuki answered. And so, they threw the dead man on top of the old lady. It looked like they wanted to have some funny hours together, even after death. “Alright. Let’s get over with this.” The men put the cover back to its original place and hammered the coffin shut before escaping through the window. It was almost as if they hadn’t been there.

“ _You can’t be serious,” Arthur said. „Yes, I am.,“ Fuki answered. “That’s the most fucked up idea I heard in ages. And believe me, I’ve heard many dumb proposals.” “But that plan is perfect.” “I don’t know. What if they open it?” “They won’t.” “What do you say, Kerrenheim?” Arthur turned to the German, who was eating a chocolate bar, again. “Why don’t we just tell the boss what happened?” The other men stared at him. “Are you out of your mind? Do you really want to confess to the highest person in here that you just killed someone by pushing a plutonium rod too hard into his ass?” Fuki was furious. Arthur sighed. “And you are sure that works?” he asked. The Japanese thought about it a moment. “I can’t say for sure, but if we don’t try it, we will never find out.”, he answered then. “_ If we don’t try, we’ll never find out.” _, the American repeated. “Pretty sure that’s exactly what you thought, when you shoved that pole into that poor guys butt.” “It wasn’t me! It was him!” Fuki protested and pointed at his fat colleague. “No surprise there. The Nazis are famous for their uneducated fuckery, when it comes to science,” Arthur said. “Did you just say the N-word?!” Kerrenheim asked, furiously. “Yes.” The Germans face went red in seconds. “You... you...said Nazi!” He shouted and walked a few steps in Arthur’s direction, ready to attack. “Maybe I said that because you are, in fact, a Nazi.”_

“ _You said it again!”_

“ _Hey! Stop it! We don’t need a fight now,” Fuki interrupted the pointless discussion. “Yeah. You’re right. It was childish of me to provoke him like that,” Arthur apologized. Kerrenheim looked at him. “Okay. But don’t say the N-word ever again.”_

“ _I won’t.”_

“ _Alright, now, that we have cleared things up we can get back to what’s really important. How do we get rid of the body? There has to be some kind of... oven... here, right? I mean, many people have died here before, so, where did they go?”_

“ _Well, there is an incinerator, but you have to have every disposal approved by the official on duty, a certain Henry Graham, a shady old man with five bottles of Vodka hidden under his desk. Despite being drunk all the time, he does his job really great. He examines the bodies before burning them. And if he finds out that you were doing shit to your subjects, he will write a letter to the boss. And then, you have a big problem. The boss doesn’t like if you mess around and don’t get any valuable information.“_

“ _Any other ideas?” “Well, the funeral...”_

_Arthur sighed and looked around nervously. It was ridiculous, as they were in his office and obviously there was no other person around. But somehow he was afraid that the boss was watching them, right now. But on the other hand, he was always paranoid about the boss. There was just something very irritating about this man. Arthur remembered one occasion especially: A dinner with various important and not-so-important people. The boss was sitting at the end of the long table, devouring a chunk of rabbit. He was very happy about not using that exact rabbit in experiments. If he had done it, he couldn’t have eaten it later. Arthur knew how greedy the boss was when it came to food. But he wasn’t fat despite eating insane amounts of cake. Arthur guessed he was doing many sports. That was the only way one could eat this much and stay thin._

——

It was raining when the trio stood in front of the massive hole, that was the grave of Elizabeth Prescott, an old lady, that had died lately. There were not many other people at the funeral, just her two children and her sister.

Arthur’s hands were sweating profusely. Of course, he and his colleagues had made up a cover story in case someone asked them what they were doing here, but he was still nervous.

He watched, as the casket was slowly lowered into the grave. The daughter struggled to hold the rope that was used to hold the coffin. It was swinging back and forth inside the grave and Arthur feared that it could crash and break.

The son of Elizabeth was sniffing into the collar of his white shirt. Everything seemed normal for a funeral. And then it happened. _Knock knock._ At first, Arthur thought, that he was the only one who heard it. Nervously, he turned to his colleagues. They were staring at him in horror. _Knock knock._ There it was again. Now the other people had noticed it too. Everyone looked at the coffin. “Mother?” The daughter asked. Quickly, they started to pull the coffin back up from the grave. Now they were sure that the knocking was coming from it’s inside. The raindrops, that had landed on the polished wood were vibrating with every knock. “Quickly, get something to open this thing!” The daughter shouted. The son pulled out a sturdy military knife from the pocket of his wet Trenchcoat. Slowly, he started to walk toward the coffin. Frantically, Arthur looked back and forth between his colleagues and the son. He knew, if he said something now, it would be extremely suspicious. The only thing he could do, was watching the disaster happen. The son moved the knife under the flat part of the nails and slowly ripped them out of the wood, one by one. The knocking was now louder and the cover of the coffin vibrated where the son had removed the nails. And then, the cover fell to the side, revealing everything. The daughter let out a high pitched scream upon seeing a naked man lying besides her dead mother. “Wha... What? Where?” The man stuttered. “Call the police! Call the police!” The daughter shouted. The man jumped out of the coffin. “You!” The man screamed and pointed at Fuki and Kerrenheim. “You stuck a Plutonium rod into my asshole and now you bury me alive? What the fuck is wrong with you?!” The other guests were visibly confused. “What Plutonium? What asshole?” The son shouted angrily. “I’ll stick _this knife_ up your butt if you don’t tell me, what you are doing in the coffin of my mother!”

The daughter had ran away and was now sitting on a bench and crying. The sister jut stared at the scenery, overwhelmed by the whole situation. “I... I... it was them!” The man shouted and pointed at the trio. “What is this here? Some sick joke?” The son was furious. His face was red and fat like a tomato, while he glared at Arthur with his little eyes. He looked like an angry rodent. “They experimented on me. I tried to escape but I guess I passed out. And then they must have placed me inside this coffin,” the man explained. The son was at loss for words. He just stared at the man with his mouth wide open. He walked back and forth, swinging the knife frantically. “No, it's not just a joke, IT'S THE ENTIRE CIRCUS!” He screamed. “Don't believe him, he's the naked man in your mother's coffin,” Arthur said now. He had to defend himself and his colleagues. “Who are you even?” The son asked aggressively. “I'm Arthur, I was a friend of your mother. I was a student at the university, where she was teaching. She helped me with my exercises,” he lied and hoped that the son would believe him. “Alright, and how does it come, that this man right here seems to know you?” “I don't know. But really, he's here, naked, with your dead mother and shouts something about human experiments. He's clearly mentally confused. So who has more credibility? Me, a friend of Elizabeth, or a random retarded guy who may or may not be a Necrophile? The son was quiet for some time, thinking about Arthur's words. “Hey, you're lying, you … shitty … scientist!” The naked man shouted. The American looked around. He was glad that there weren't more people on the graveyard, because that would have been horrible. He imagined hundreds of people staring at him and his colleagues, watching them fuck up the situation. “Well, he didn't get into a closed coffin all by himself,” the son said and looked at Arthur suspiciously. And this was the moment he knew that he had lost. And so he did what every man should do. He began to run, closely followed by his colleagues, who were clearly confused by this action. They ran away from the graveyard, crossed a street, made their way through he darker, dirtier parts of the city. At first, the son tried to follow them, but gave up soon, with a very disappointed and angry look on his face.   
They stopped in a shady alley, that was barely wide enough to let Kerrenheim through, who was breathing heavily and profusely, just like an old dog. “ _They won't open it_ , that's what he said!” Arthur shouted and looked at Fuki, who was staring at the gray, wet floor. He said nothing to defend himself. “Do you realize that we are fucked for eternity? Those people will go to the authorities with this case. And the authorities will find us. And they will throw us into prison. And then, then all the people we know from work will visit us, just to laugh and smile and ... and inject us with kitty piss to see what happens!” He was furious and in despair. Already he imagined all sorts of terrible scenarios that may or may not take place. “And even if the authorities don't find us, how do we explain this to the boss? 'Oh, excuse me, Mister Progresso, but, ah, my incompetent colleagues let a guy escape, then I thought he was dead and we put him in the coffin with another dead person, just because we didn't have the balls to tell you about the Plutonium!' He will smash us with golden bricks and lock us inside the mouse house, in the 25th basement. And when a lost scientist finally takes interest in us, we will die at the hands of a-an inexperienced teenager who just found out what a biological weapon is. We will die a terrible, shitty death. I-I don't want to die, I want to live, I...” His words got lost in an unintelligible mix of angry shouting and hopeless whimpering. “Hey, Mister Blackenship, everything is going to be al-,” Fuki started. “I hate my fucking life!” Arthur screamed into the sky, as if he wanted to blame god for his problems. “Hey, listen, even if they go to the authorities with this, who will believe them? They can't prove that that guy really was inside the coffin. They can't prove, that we were at the funeral. They don't even know our names. Well, they know that one of us is called Arthur, but how many Arthurs are there in the United States? Probably hundreds,” Fuki said. Arthur, who was now sitting on the floor, getting his clothes soaked with water, looked at the Japanese. “You really think it will be that way?” He asked insecurely. “Yes. Believe me, everything will be fine. And even if the boss finds out about this, we can still ask to get shot by him, and if we do it respectfully, he might do it and we won't have to go through any experiments before we die.” The thought of getting shot by Mr Progresso wasn't exactly something, that made him happy, but it managed to shove away his other speculations, that involved getting thrown out of a plane and blood transfusions with a wild, dirty squirrel. Arthur sighed and stood up from the wet street. “My pants are wet,” he said. “You don't say. You basically sat in a puddle of water,” Kerrenheim commented. “Well, at least I don't look like a bowling ball.” The German crossed his arms. “Yes yes, just continue to shame me for my weight. I can be very useful when it comes to kicking down doors.” “I believe that immediately.” “And we just continue our lives, just as if nothing happened, alright?” Fuki asked. “Yeah,” Arthur and Kerrenheim said simultaneously. “I think this is the best we can do.”


	4. Chapter 4

Arthur entered the building. He walked fast and determined toward the staircase that would bring him to the floor his office was on. After the disaster, that happened at the funeral, he didn't want to cross paths with Mr Progresso, his boss. “Blackenship! Come here!” It was too late. The boss had found him. He looked even fatter than usual, as if he wanted to take up as much space as possible to look more intimidating. In addition to that, he wore an ugly white suit, that was supposed to look like a lab coat, and numerous heavy golden rings. He reminded Arthur of Trimalchio from Petronius' “Satyricon”: Rich, fat and stupid. “Come to my office, Blackenship.” He knew that he had no chance of getting away, so he followed Mr Progresso into his office. Right as he stepped through the door, he was filled with jealousy. The office was thrice as big as his own. A very expensive desk stood in the middle of the room, two big wooden shelves were lined up at the walls, holding many books about human biology. And the floor, the goddamn floor. It was perfect. The carpet looked like an extremely elongated poodle dog and there were no annoying brown stains on it.  
The boss sat on his expensive chair. “Ah, Mister Blackenship. What did you do now... I didn't promote you for _this,_ ” he said. “To be fair, it wasn't entirely my fault. Mister Fuki and Mister Kerrenheim were the ones who let the subject escape in the first place.” “Yes. But I have been told that they were conducting some rather...questionable experiments on him. And your task is to look after your colleagues so they don't do anything that could be nonsense from a scientific standpoint. Technically, it was your fault because are the head of the fourth German-Japanese-Research-Unit and therefore have the responsibility to watch your people and don't let things like this happen. ”The fat man was staring at him, he stared back. “And what now?” He asked. Mr Progresso sighed. “Look, I have known you for a long time now. I was there, when you first entered this building, full of enthusiasm and patriotism. You have never disappointed me like that before. I am willing to give you a second chance. From now on, you will be working at the second research station. There you will get a new superior. The fourth German-Japanese-Research-Unit will continue to exist, but under new management. We have decided to accept three new employees, two of them will be in charge of you, Mister Fuki and Mister Kerrenheim,” the boss said. Arthur nodded. He wasn't exactly happy about this solution, but he also knew, that it could be much much worse. “I have a question. What happened to the three people from the funeral.” Mr Progresso gave him a weird smirk. “You will find out about that soon.”

~ * ~

Arthur walked through the corridor, carrying a cardboard box. This box was filled with all the stuff he needed from his office. He was sad. He would miss his old office, even if it had been so difficult to get there every day. In the end, it had a good view of the surrounding city. Arthur wondered, what his new office would be like. He decided to be optimistic. Maybe it would be even better than the first one.   
The man swung the doors open, that led to the part of the building that was the second research station. The boring gray-blue linoleum floor was scratched from all the trays and rolling tables that were shoved around every day. The walls were white, totally white, like in a hospital. There were posters taped to the walls. There was a light blue one that said PROGRESS HAS NO LIMIT, a yellow one that read THEY ARE A DANGER TO AMERICA. DON'T THINK ABOUT THEM. THINK ABOUT YOUR COUNTRY. DO IT IN THE NAME OF SCIENCE. There was even a poster for the test subjects that was light pink. YOU MUST PLEASE THE SCIENTIST was written on it. Arthur didn't mind those posters. They were hanging almost everywhere in the building. One time, he even saw one on the toilet, reminding him to only conduct scientifically reasonable experiments. The only one of those things that he didn't like was on the wall in the entrance hall.   
Arthur stopped in front of a plain white door. There were no scratches, no paint that was falling of. He pulled out his keys from his pocket and unlocked the door.   
The office was acceptable. It was cleaner and looked newer than his old one. The desk was made out of solid oak wood, the bookshelves looked sturdy. The floor was clean, but there was no carpet, just the same linoleum that was also in the corridor. But there was one thing that really bothered Arthur. It was the window. There was no view of the city. Instead, he saw just another part of the complex when he looked outside. It was research station one, that was superior to research station two in almost any way. Better equipment, better scientists, more funding. Arthur could see into the laboratories, where the experiments were conducted. If he had binoculars, he probably could watch all those tests happen. But he had no binoculars. And now, as he was in another job position, he wouldn't earn enough to buy some.   
He put the cardboard box down on the floor and began to unpack its content. He had even brought his broken typewriter, because he just couldn't stand the thought of leaving it behind to get thrown into the trash. This typewriter had served him for many years and he didn't want to betray it now. Of course, this thought was absurd, it was just an object in the end, but Arthur had some kind of sentimental connection to this thing.   
He also unpacked his books and put them on the appropriate shelves, sorted alphabetically by the names of the authors.   
When he was finished, he sighed and let himself fall onto the chair, that was standing behind the desk. _What now?,_ he thought. As he was sitting there for god knows how long, his brain came up with a wonderful idea. Since this was where he would work for a long time, he could walk around and get to know his new workplace better. And so, he got up and slowly left the room.   
  
When he finally reached the end of the corridor, where his and the others' offices were, he had to pass through a thick glass door. After that, he could see a wider corridor. Even more posters were hanging here. Arthur counted five. He didn't bother to read them because he was sure it was just the usual ramblings about progress and the country. Every single door in this hallway led to a laboratory, where experiments were conducted. Arthur could smell the tons of different chemicals, that were used. He also could hear the faint snorting and heavy short breathing that the test subjects made. He just stood there for a while, absorbing and inhaling this mysterious atmosphere of research. But then, he decided to continue his journey. Research station 2 was far from small.   
He passed through yet another glass door, that was partially smeared with an unidentified yellow substance, that stunk like a homeless man with severe diarrhea. The useless 10 Watt light bulbs, that hung from the ceiling, were swinging back and forth, as if they wanted to escape the horrible smell.   
What came next was a surprise for Arthur. Behind the door, there was a big room with six smaller rooms in it. Each room was set up like a prison cell and was holding one subject. Every room had one big window, so that the scientist could observe the subjects from outside. But that was not the surprise, it was actually a common sight in Arthur's field of work. No, the thing that hit him was the woman, who was standing in the middle of the room. She had her dark brown hair tied in a ponytail and was staring through one of the windows. Even if Arthur only saw her from the side, he knew it was her. His hands started to sweat and he thought about turning around and retreating to his office, in the hope she wouldn't find him there. But it was too late. The woman had already noticed him. Arthur felt like his golden and brick-red striped tie was trying to strangle him. “Well, hello there!” The woman said. It sounded excited and sinister at the same time. “Uh, hello,” Arthur answered, too blown away to think of something else to say.   
“You're surprised to see me here, right, Mister Blackenship?” Oh god, she knew his last name.   
“You thought that running away would help you? Really? Are you a man or a child?”  
“Why are you here?” Arthur asked, ignoring that the woman was making fun of him. “Well, after you and you little friends left, we went straight to the next police station. But guess what, the policeman in duty works for this institution here. So he immediately believed us, when we told him what happened. And then, he asked us about our jobs and made us an offer we simply couldn't turn down.”   
“He offered you to work here? Why? Are you even qualified?” The woman gave him a smirk and looked like a sneaky criminal weasel, while she was doing it.   
“Oh, Mister Blackenship. You must know, me and my brother, we are both doctors. We worked at the general hospital, before all of this mess happened. So, to answer your question, yes, we are qualified.”   
Arthur just stared at her. He was unable to come up with anything he could possibly say.   
“And do you know what's even better? I know you were demoted and that you now have to work here. And do you know, who the head of this compartment is? Right, it's me, Priscilla Prescott.”  
The word “No” popped up in Arthur's head, over and over again. Was he dreaming? Was he going insane? The situation seemed so unreal to him.   
“You will have to take orders from me now. I have power, they can't take it away from me!” The woman let out a crazy laughter. “Come, here, Blackenship,” she ordered. Arthur slowly walked toward her.   
“Look inside this room,” she said and pointed at the glass wall, that was now in front of them. Arthur stared into the tiny room. There was a man sitting on a crappy bed, staring back at the people who were watching him. He looked confused.   
Suddenly, Priscilla jumped forward, landing right in front of the glass with a loud _bang._ “I never knew that I waited all my life for this!” She shouted.   
“Waited for what?”   
“All of this. I love this new job. Human experimentation is so exciting!” Priscilla started to move her hands around and rubbed her upper body against the glass. The man inside the room looked surprised and shocked by her actions. Arthur had similar feelings.   
“All those opportunities I have now. All this progress we can make!” She turned in his direction for a moment. Her eyes were extremely widened and all Arthur could see in her face was pure insanity. She kinda looked like an eagle close to attacking his prey. Drool was running from her mouth, leaving slimy stains on the side of her perfectly white lab coat. Arthur was not sure about what to do, so he just stood there and watched. The woman sucked the drool back into her mouth with a loud slurping sound and started to laugh again.   
And then, it happened. With an aroused chuckle, Priscilla pushed her face against the glass and began to lick it, leaving greasy trails of saliva on it. At this point, the man inside the room just turned around and stared at the wall.   
“Hey, you! _Sliiirp_. Are you ready for, _sliiirp,_ the first experiment, _sliirp_ , my little test subject?”   
“Ahem, I think I have some paperwork to do,” Arthur said and turned around in the direction of the exit.   
“Yeah, I understand. It's alright. I'm sure we will meet soon again. Bye,” she replied and continued to make weird sounds.   
Arthur walked out of the room as fast as he could. What did he just witness? He decided to go to his office and stay there until he could go home. No matter how shitty and boring it would be, he wanted to avoid this Priscilla at any cost. He walked past the “You must please the scientist.” poster. Now he could say for sure, that his new boss was really pleased with her work. Maybe a little bit too pleased.   
“Hey, Mister Blackenship, or can I call you Arthur? I have to tell you something important.” Arthur turned into the direction from which the voice came. Fuki was standing in the middle of the corridor. “  
Yeah, you can call me Arthur, I'm not your boss anymore. What is it?”   
“Let's go to your office. I don't want anyone to listen to our conversation.”   
The two men entered the office. Arthur sat on his shaking, uneven chair.   
“I have news. An acquaintance of mine is having a diner this evening and he invited me. I can take two friends with me. Kerrenheim already agreed to come, and now I wanted to ask you,” The Japanese said. Arthur thought about it for a moment.   
“Yeah, why not. But do I need to know Japanese?”  
“No, it's fine. There will be a translator. You can do nothing wrong.”   
“Alright. Tell him I will come.”


End file.
